It has been a year or two since i received a memorable text message from my mom (the other lump of clay), which sticks in my memory. She had had a dream about me, which she believed to be from God, and she texted to ask me, “Well, Beth, what’s your ministry?”
The word ministry trips me up a little bit – maybe because it gets misused a lot in our society. But the imagery in my mom’s dream helped me out. The imagery in her dream was a car (a red convertible, if i remember right), otherwise also known as a vehicle. So when i framed the question back to myself in terms of “what is the vehicle God has given you to use to affect others with the gospel?” the question was a little easier for me to navigate. What’s my vehicle?
The apostle Paul said this a little differently. In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul reminds Timothy to “rekindle the gift of God that is within him.” Some translations say, “stir up” the gift of God, which lies within you. This verse can be used as a launching pad for us to get a little too wrapped up in finding out what our individual “calling” might be. But when i was studying this scripture, i realized something a little different. The first and most important calling that each of us has is that of following Jesus, and the first and most important gift that lies within every Christian is the gift of salvation – having been made part of the family of God by divine mercy and grace. And if we have received His salvation, the Holy Spirit lives within us.
In Romans 12, we are challenged to be a living sacrifice to God . . . and that because of His mercies, this is a sacrifice which is pleasing to God. This passage goes on to explain that as members of the body of Christ, we each have function. Every single one of us. But can i tell you something? I don’t think you learn your function by trying to find your function. I think you find your function by yielding every single part of your life to Christ in as much completeness as you can, asking Him to help you do so.
There’s another thing. You are super important to the body of Christ. And if you think you’re not important, let me ask you what happens if you get a blister on your toe? Does it cause you to limp a little bit? Do you walk slower now? After you’ve been limping for a while, does your opposite hip get sore from the imbalance?
I can name one or two gifts or skills that i think the Lord wants me to nurture for His service, but something i’m re-realizing is that no skill or talent is any good to the Lord if i don’t surrender all of me to His service.
I am finding recently that i am way too busy – or maybe i’m just not prioritizing very well. But i find that i’m not spending the daily time surrendered to the Lord. And if i’m not doing that, then i get distracted by all sorts of things and forget my purpose, which is to be a living sacrifice.
Let me ask you: can you carve 30 additional minutes out of your day to get to know God better? Fifteen? Ten? In the Old Testament, we read about a man named Daniel. Daniel was kidnapped from his home, taken from his parents, raised by pagans, eventually elevated to the status in which he was essentially running the country for the emperor, and yet the Bible tells us he made it his business to stop 3 times per day and pray to the One True God. Are we really too busy to pray, to study the precious scripture He has provided for us? Daniel had a very big job, and he lived in a land hostile (very hostile) to his faith. And he was faithful to pray 3 times a day.
What’s my ministry? The first answer for each of us has to be that our number one ministry is to be living sacrifices before God, fully surrendered to whatever He wants to do with our lives, which may be one thing or 100 things.
I’m encouraging you to do the thing that i’m reminding myself to do: make your relationship with Christ your number one priority, and if you don’t have enough time, push something else off of your schedule. When we are spending time getting to know our Savior and Creator by reading His word, worshipping Him, praying, and spending time in His presence, ministry to others always flows out of that, but we can’t get it backwards.
